The social-media giant faces a reputational crisis.
LAST year the idea took hold that Mark Zuckerberg might run for president in 2020 and seek to lead the world’s most powerful country. Today, Facebook’s founder is fighting to show that he is capable of leading the world’s eighth-biggest listed company or that any of its 2.1bn users should trust it.
去年有一个说法在到处流传：脸书的CEO扎克伯格可能会参加2020年的总统竞选并且要带领出世界上最强的国家。如今，脸书的创始人们却在尽力证明他有这个能力带领世界前八大的公司并且他的2.1千万用户应该相信他。
News that Cambridge Analytica (CA), a firm linked to President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, got data on 50m Facebook users in dubious, possibly illegal, ways has lit a firestorm (see United States section). Mr Zuckerberg took five days to reply and, when he did, he conceded that Facebook had let its users down in the past but seemed not to have grasped that its business faces a wider crisis of confidence. After months of talk about propaganda and fake news, politicians in Europe and, increasingly, America see Facebook as out of control and in denial. Congress wants him to testify. Expect a roasting.
据说一个与特朗普总统2016竞选有关联的公司Cambridge Analytica (CA)从脸书那里以可疑的、甚至可能是违法的方式获取了5千万用户的数据信息，这点燃了美国人民的熊熊怒火。扎克伯格用了5天的时间来回复这件事情，他认为脸书曾让用户们失望，但他并没有意识到其业务面临着更恐怖的信任危机。在讨论了好几个月宣传和假新闻后，欧洲的政客们以及越来越多的美国人开始认为脸书处于失控状态，却拒绝承认这个事实。国会希望他能作证，也许会产生进一步的拷问。
Since the news, spooked investors have wiped 9% off Face- book’s shares. Consumers are belatedly waking up to the dangers of handing over data to tech giants that are run like black boxes. Already, according to the Pew Research Centre, a think- tank, a majority of Americans say they distrust social-media firms. Mr Zuckerberg and his industry need to change, fast.
自从这个新闻出现后，惊恐的投资者们已经撤资了9%。消费者们也才意识到把数据交给科技巨头们并且让他们像黑盒子一样玩耍的危险性。根据一个智囊团——Pew研究中心，大部分美国人说他们不相信社交媒体公司。扎克伯格和他的商业需要立即做出改变。
The addiction game
Facebook’s business relies on three elements: keeping users glued to their screens, collecting data about their behaviour and convincing advertisers to pay billions of dollars to reach them with targeted ads. The firm has an incentive to promote material that grabs attention and to sell ads to anyone. Its culture melds a ruthless pursuit of profit with a Panglossian and narcissistic belief in its own virtue. Mr Zuckerberg controls the firm’s voting rights. Clearly, he gets too little criticism.
脸书依赖于三个要素：使用户依赖于他们的屏幕；收集他们行为的相关数据；说服广告商花上十亿美金给用户提供针对性的广告。这个公司能提升你的材料让你更能吸引用户并且把广告卖给任何人。它的文化融合了以庞德罗斯的方式对利益鲁莽的追求和对自身道德的自恋倾向。扎克伯格决定这公司的投票权。很显然，他受到的批评太少了。
In the latest fiasco, it emerged that in 2013 an academic in Britain built a questionnaire app for Facebook users, which 270,000 people answered. They in turn had 50m Facebook friends. Data on all these people then ended up with CA. (Full disclosure: The Economist once used CA for a market-research project.) Facebook says that it could not happen again and that the academic and CA broke its rules; both deny doing anything wrong. Regulators in Europe and America are investigating. Facebook knew of the problem in 2015, but it did not alert individual users. Although nobody knows how much CA benefited Mr Trump’s campaign, the fuss has been amplified by the left’s disbelief that he could have won the election fairly.
在最新的财务报告中，它发现在2013年，英国的一位学者为Facebook用户构建了一个问卷调查应用程序，其中27万人回答了问题。他们因此有了5千万Facebook好友。这些人的数据最终流到了CA的手里。Facebook说这种事情不会再发生了，而且这个学者和CA破坏了规则；但他们两个都拒绝承认错误。欧洲和美国的管理者正在调查这件事。虽然没有知道特朗普的竞选从CA那里得到了多少好处，但是左派对于特朗普能公平赢得竞选这件事感到大吃一惊。
But that does not give Facebook a defence. The episode fits an established pattern of sloppiness towards privacy, tolerance of inaccuracy and reluctance to admit mistakes. In early 2017 Mr Zuckerberg dismissed the idea that fake news had influenced the election as“pretty crazy”. In September Facebook said Kremlin-linked firms had spent a mere $100,000 to buy 3,000 adverts on its platform, failing at first to mention that 150m users had seen free posts by Russian operatives. It has also repeatedly misled advertisers about its user statistics.
但是这并不能带给Facebook一些缓和。这一事件已经是一个关于隐私倾向，容忍不准确和不愿承认错误的问题。在2017年初，扎克伯格否决了假新闻“疯狂地”影响了竞选这个看法。在12月，Facebook说与克里姆林宫相关的公司只花了100,000美元在他的平台上卖广告，没有解释清楚15千万用户看见的俄罗斯操作员发的免费动态。他同样总是误导一些广告商对于他的用户数据的分析。
Facebook is not about to be banned or put out of business, but the chances of regulatory backlash are growing. Europe is inflicting punishment by a thousand cuts, from digital taxes to antitrust cases. And distrustful users are switching off. The American customer base of Facebook’s core social network has stagnated since June 2017. Its share of America’s digital advertising market is forecast to dip this year for the first time. The network effect that made Facebook ever more attractive to new members as it grew could work in reverse if it starts to shrink. Facebook is worth $493bn, but only has $14bn of physical assets. Its value is intangible—and, potentially, ephemeral.
Facebook不是要被禁止或者逐出市场，相反，这是个机会去增强监管反弹。从数据税收到反托拉斯案件，欧洲正受到上千的削减惩罚。不信任软件的用户正在退出。从2017年6月开始，美国人作为Facebook的核心社交用户正在逐渐减少。它在美国数字广告市场的份额预计今年将首次下滑。Facebook的网络影响使他对于新用户来说变得更加有吸引力，但如果这个影响开始缩减，也可以产生相反的效应。Facebook价值4930亿美元，但是只有140亿的实物资产。它的价值是无形的——甚至可能是短暂的。
If Mr Zuckerberg wants to do right by the public and his firm, he must rebuild trust. So far he has promised to audit some apps, restrict developers’ access to data still further, and help people control which apps have access to their data.
如果扎克伯格想要为人民和他的公司做一些正确的事情，他必须重新建立起信任。目前为止他只是承诺了要去重新审核一些软件，并且帮助人们选择什么软件可以访问他们的数据，禁止开发者访问数据这件事仍然很遥远。
That doesn’t go nearly far enough. Facebook needs a full, independent examination of its approach to content, privacy and data, including its role in the 2016 election and the Brexit referendum. This should be made public. Each year Facebook should publish a report on its conduct that sets out everything from the prevalence of fake news to privacy breaches.
这是远远不够的。Facebook需要一个完整的、独立的检查方式去检查他的背景、隐私和数据，包括在2016年竞选中以及英国脱欧公投中他扮演的角色。这件事情应该被公开。每一年Facebook都应该发布一份关于其行为的报告，其中要列出从虚假新闻盛行到隐私泄露等一切事情。
Next, Facebook and other tech firms need to open up to outsiders, safely and methodically. They should create an industry ombudsman—call it the Data Rights Board. Part of its job would be to set and enforce the rules by which accredited independent researchers look inside platforms without threatening users’ privacy. Software is being developed with this in mind (see Science section). The likes of Facebook raise big questions. How does micro-targeting skew political campaigns? What biases infect facial-recognition algorithms? Better they be answered with evidence instead of outrage.
然后，Facebook和其他的科技公司需要安全的、有条不紊的公开给外人们。他们应该创建一个行业监察专员——称之为数据权利委员会。他的一部分职责就是在没有威胁到用户隐私的情况下，强制规定已授权的独立的研究院可以得到数据。软件就是在以这样的方式发展。对于Facebook的喜爱引发了更大的问题。数据定位（利用用户数据去分析他们的兴趣并影响他们的决策）如何影响到政治运动的？什么偏见会影响到面部识别算法？希望他们能用事实来解决这些问题而不是民愤。
The board or something like it could also act as a referee for complaints, and police voluntary data-protection protocols. Facebook, for example, is planning to comply worldwide with some of the measures contained in a new European law, called the General Data Protection Regulation. Among other things, this will give users more power to opt out of being tracked online and to stop their information being shared with third parties. Adherence to such rules needs to be closely monitored.
董事会或类似的组织也可以作为投诉和警方资源实施的数据保护协议的审查者。比如，Facebook正计划在全球范围内遵循一项名为《通用数据保护条例》（General Data Protection Regulation）的欧洲新法律所包含的一些措施。此外，这可以给用户更多权力去选择不被他们网上跟踪，并且组织他们与第三方分享他们的信息。对这些法规的遵循情况需要密切监测。
Thumbs down
Tech has experience of acting collectively to solve problems. Standards on hardware and software, and the naming of internet domains, are agreed on jointly. Facebook’s rivals may be wary but, if the industry does not come up with a joint solution, a government clampdown will become inevitable.
科技有过一起解决问题的历史。对于硬件和软件的标准，还有对于互联网域名的命名，都是大家一致同意的。Facebook的竞争对手可能会比较谨慎，但如果他们自己想不出来一个解决办法，政府就一定会进行打压。
Facebook seems to think it only needs to tweak its approach. In fact it, and other firms that hoover up consumer data, should assume that their entire business model is at risk. As users become better informed, the alchemy of taking their data without paying and manipulating them for profit may die. Firms may need to compensate people for their data or let them pay to use platforms ad-free. Profits won’t come as easily, but the alternative is stark. If Facebook ends up as a regulated utility with its returns on capital capped, its earnings may drop by 80%. How would you like that, Mr Zuckerberg?
Facebook貌似认为他们只需要换一个方法。但事实上，他和其他拥有大量消费者数据的公司应该意识到自己的整个商业模式都处于十分危险的状态。随着用户知道的信息越来越多，这个免费拿走他们的数据并用来挣钱的“炼金术”可能就失灵了。公司可能需要因为这些数据而补偿用户，或者让他们交钱来使用没有广告的平台。利益不会来的这么轻松，但是另一个选择却是严峻的。如果Facebook最终成为受监管的公用事业公司，其资本回报率上限，其收益可能会下降80％。你会喜欢这样吗，扎克伯格先生？
原文链接：https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21739151-how-it-and-wider-industry-should-respond-facebook-faces-reputational-meltdown
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